


i want to tell you, but i don't know how

by cloudcity



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Pre-Slash, This was me craving nebula protecting/defending mantis and nothing more, idk what endgame is gonna be doing but this is ignoring all that probably, literally the worst at tagging ive decided, other characters are mentioned but thats about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-13 12:34:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18469072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudcity/pseuds/cloudcity
Summary: “Thanks for defending Mantis. I keep trying to tell her to defend herself but-““Why do you care.” She makes it sound as far from a question as she can. More of a warning to leave her alone. A warning she isn’t sure why she bothers with, knowing that he never heeds it.“I sorta think of her as a sister, y’know? Hell, she probably actually is my sister.”





	i want to tell you, but i don't know how

**Author's Note:**

> and the saga of me naming fics after sleeping at last songs continues. also i wait so long between fics that i think i forget how to write every time i sit down to do it again so i apologize for that

Thanos is dead. After everything she’s been through, the words sound like nothing but a lie to her ears. She keeps waiting for that moment to come where it finally clicks into place and she’s able to believe it, to relax… but that moment doesn’t come, and that puts her on edge. The feeling is unwelcome and all too familiar. So, between that and the Avengers and their incessant arguing, it was really only a matter of time before she snapped. 

Stark has been complaining for over half an hour now about how hard it is to live with the Guardians and Quill has been countering that it was Stark’s idea for them to stay in the first place—and it had been. He insisted on it, saying that they needed their rest and to make sure that their ship was in “tip-top shape” before heading back out into space—but that didn’t seem to be a valid argument to him when he was mad. 

She pushes off the wall to leave before he says something that Nebula doesn’t catch, but it makes Mantis look just upset enough for her to stalk forward and grab a tool off the workbench. She points it at Stark’s throat which is the thing that finally shuts everyone up. If she’d known this would work, she would’ve threatened bodily harm half an hour ago. 

“Do you need something, Robocop?” It’s all he says, but the widening of his eyes gives away any surprise or fear he’s trying to keep out of his words. 

“Apologize. Now.” 

Stark looks to the others in the room for support maybe? She doesn’t know. He looks back to her when no one says anything, eyebrows raised. “You have a screwdriver to my neck and I’m the one who needs to apologize? To who?”

“To Mantis, or the screwdriver is going though your neck.”

So, just like that, she’s back to scaring people into doing or saying whatever she needs. If she’s learned anything over these past few weeks its that civilized discussions never cut it with these people anyway.

Tony looks like he’s considering something else before giving up on the idea. “I’m sorry, Mantis.”

It doesn’t sound like he even means it, but Nebula is starting to regret her outburst so she lets the screwdriver clatter to the floor before mumbling, “room full of fucking idiots,” and leaving the lab before anyone can say anything else to her. She shoves Thor out of her way—something she wouldn’t have been able to do if he hadn’t let her.

Her first night here, she’d walked the entire compound twice. The unfamiliar environment had made her restless. She has it committed to memory now and walks the halls with the purpose of getting outside. She knows the yard will be empty because everyone that still inhabits the compound was in the room when she lost her temper. 

She’s out here more often than she’s inside. The ship is out here, and so is the peace and quiet… most of the time. 

She talks to Gamora on the rare occasions that she knows what to say. Mantis talks to her, because whether she knows what to say or not, it never stops her from speaking to whoever will listen. It’s probably why she’s around Nebula so often. Nebula makes a good listener. 

Other than that, she rarely interacts with these people and the first interaction she’s had with an Avenger since they won the fight was her threatening one of them. She could go back and apologize, but that seems more uncomfortable than just leaving it alone. Knowing what little she does about Stark, she’s guessing he would agree. 

 

Probably the last person in the building she would want to come after her is the one that does.

“You good?” Quill asks.

She doesn’t answer him, just continues to make her way around the ship. She was supposed to run through her checklist earlier but Rocket had been running his. Her checklist is just his but more thorough and she would rather him not know she did it. It would make him want to run through it a third time to one-up her and she would hate to have to kill him for his competitive nature. Well… she wouldn’t hate to, but it would probably upset her sister if she did. 

“Well, whatever. Thanks for defending Mantis. I keep trying to tell her to defend herself but-“

“Why do you care.” She makes it sound as far from a question as she can. More of a warning to leave her alone. A warning she isn’t sure why she bothers with, knowing that he never heeds it.

“I sorta think of her as a sister, y’know? Hell, she probably actually is my sister.” 

Not sure what the purpose is, she says, “and Gamora is mine.” 

“Is this the shovel talk?” He sounds amused by it.

“I have no idea what that means. Are you going to leave me alone at some point?” She finally turns around to look at him now. He’s smiling and she wants to smack it off of his face.

“It’s— yeah never mind, not worth it.” When she just continues to stand there, arms crossed, he adds, “Mantis seemed… grateful that you… stopped all the yelling.” His slow speaking in a tone she can’t decipher is getting on her nerves. 

She lets he arms fall back to her sides, he looks a little naively hopeful that he’s broken down the barrier between them. He hasn’t. She turns back around to continue inspecting the engine—the reason they’re stuck here to begin with. Rocket refuses to admit that he doesn’t know what happened to it. He’s insisting that the problem just takes a while to fix and that he’s working on it. They all know better, but they also know better than to say anything about it. 

“Whatever. Rocket is gonna be pissed if he knows you’re doing this.” An empty threat. He’s switching tactics and means to antagonize her now. She can’t give in because she always takes this kind of bait. It’s one of her biggest flaws. It’s why Thanos— no, shut up.

Something in her demeanor must change, because he says, “I’ll leave you to it,” in a tone too soft to be coming from him and directed at her. 

 

It’s late when she walks back to the compound. Most everyone is settled in or gone home for the night. She knows this for a fact. It’s the only reason she goes back inside. 

She and the Guardians are all sharing a space. Sometimes this makes it hard for her to go to bed without interruption, but it seems like she’s just lucky tonight. That, or everyone is making it so it feels that way. 

She’s asleep the moment she lays down.

 

She thinks she was screaming in her sleep, but her throat isn’t sore. Maybe it was all just in her dreams. Trapped behind her lips like a scream out of a nightmare where making a noise is both impossible and the only thing that could save you from your fate. 

 

Making her way to the kitchen area is her least favorite part of the day. It has been since day one. Avoiding others is impossible there. 

Two of the men that had left the moment this all ended are in here when she arrives. She remembers one of them as Steve. She remembers the other as one of the many that they’d brought back to life. That one smiles in greeting before turning back to his newspaper, not forcing her to return the favor. She fills a glass with water, standing at the sink to drink it. 

“You’re up before everyone else. Now would be a good time to make breakfast,” Steve offers, the way a friend would offer up advice. He seems to talks to everyone like a friend. He reminds her of Mantis in that way. 

As if she’d said her name out loud, Mantis walks in. 

She greets the room with a, “good morning,” before sitting at the other end of the table from the two men. 

Without really thinking, Nebula fills another glass and takes it to her. Mantis takes it, smiling. She looks as if she wants Nebula to speak, so she does her best to ignore the other two in the room. “Sorry if I scared you yesterday,” knowing she didn’t. Mantis, for all her softness and naïvety, doesn’t scare easily. 

Mantis’ smile turns into something a little softer, “of course you didn’t.”

Nebula can’t think of a response besides a nod, so that’s what she does before walking back out of the room. Mantis, of course, follows her. Something Nebula is surprised she hadn’t done yesterday. 

“I want to spend the day with you!” She blurts out, causing Nebula to stop walking. Mantis, not expecting this, stops ahead of her and has to turn back around to face her. 

“What? Why?”

She shrugs, “I would just like to. Can I?” 

“I don’t have anything planned.”

“Okay, then you can spend the day with me.” 

Nebula nods, not really seeing who would benefit from her continuing to stand here in the middle of the hall and argue about it. She also wasn’t lying about having no plans. She fills up most of her days here with useless activities. Just last week she cleaned the entire ship inside and out. Quill had thanked her, confused, and she had acted like she hadn’t heard him. 

Mantis bounces up once, clapping her hands together, “okay, come on!” 

She follows her to the sitting area currently assigned to the Guardians. The puzzle that’s been scattered across the table for a couple of days now is Mantis’ doing. She saw her working on it just once and not a whole lot of progress has been made since then. Nebula expects that to be her—their, now—plans for the morning, but they walk past it. 

They continue on until they get outside. Mantis puts a few feet between herself and the door before reaching under the jacket she’s wearing. “I want you to teach me to use this,” she pulls a blaster out and holds it up, pointing it wherever. 

Nebula pulls it out of her grip, “first lesson: don’t point this at me.”

“The safety is on. I am not dumb,” she draws out the last word, taking her weapon back. She gets into a stance that would do her no favors in battle and points toward the empty clearing. There’s a row of targets on the other end, clearly placed there by the Avengers for such occasions as this. 

“You shouldn’t stand like that.”

Mantis lowers the blaster, frowning in determination, “how should I stand?”

“Like…” she moves to position the woman herself before drawing her hands back. She sighs, reaching back out, knowing this is probably the best way to help her. “Like this.” 

She nudges Mantis’ legs a little further apart with her boot to give her a wider stance. She grabs her shoulders and angles her a little more so that she’s lined up with the target and says, “now raise it.” 

It’s clear that Mantis has picked up enough from watching the others to know how extended her arms should be and how her fingers should be positioned around the blaster, because she does that part perfectly. Nebula nods, mostly to herself. “Line the shot as best as you can.” 

The sentence is barely out of her mouth when Mantis takes the shot. It misses the target entirely, but that seems to be what they had both expected. Without missing a beat, she lines it more carefully now. She a little more slow about it the second time and as a result, it almost hits the outer circle. 

“I will get it this time, hold on.” She takes her time with it—something she should’ve done in the first place. 

 

Nebula has been in battle with Mantis only once. She’d had to guard her the whole time, gotten pissed off about it, and taken it out on Mantis after it was over. That wasn’t fair and she’d known it then like she knows it now. Mantis hadn’t meant to get caught in the middle. The surprise attack hadn’t left her much of a choice in the matter. Later that night, she apologized per Gamora’s instruction. Instead of forgiving words, she’d gotten a, ‘I’m sorry I don’t know how to fight,’ instead. She hadn’t sounded sad about it, just sincere, like it was her fault how she was raised. 

It had made Nebula feel worse than her sister yelling at her to go apologize. 

Nebula had felt embarrassed about her instinct to throw herself in front of Mantis when Quill had been closer and could’ve and would’ve done it himself. It had been so much easier to get angry at her afterward than to think about the fact that she’d put herself in danger for a woman she had just barely gotten to know back then. 

 

The sound of the blaster going off startled her out of her thoughts. It took Mantis turning to smile at her before she realized that the blast hit the target. It wasn’t dead center, but she seemed so happy about even hitting it at all. 

Nebula smiled back, Mantis’ excited energy contagious. “Nicely done.” When she doesn’t get a response, she tilts her head in question, “what?” 

“I like when you smile.” Not another word is put in before she turns back to the target and keeps practicing. 

Nebula freezes up like an idiot that’s never heard a compliment before. The ‘compliments’ she hears are usually only thought of as compliments by the men that holler them. 

Mantis shoots a couple more times, only one hitting the target again, before clicking the safety and turning back around. “Are you okay?”

“What? Yeah… I’m fine.” 

“I will continue this tomorrow. I want to finish my puzzle now.” She tucks the blaster away in a holster that Quill probably gave her. She grabs Nebula by the wrist and practically skips back to the compound. Nebula finds it inconvenient to be held onto but instead of pulling away, she keeps up as best as she can. 

She looks at this woman she has this instinct to protect. One that only gets stronger the more she’s around her. It frustrates her because its so unfamiliar; its not the way she was raised. The instinct to protect Gamora had been beaten out of her. There’s always an illogical part of her brain that tells her that she’s still in a situation like that. That Thanos will remove this from her too.

She wants this feeling, she just doesn’t know how to let herself open up to it. 

Mantis drops her hand when they make it back to her puzzle. She sits down on the couch immediately, this newfound motivation coming from nowhere and not making much sense to Nebula from the outside. A lot of things Mantis does doesn’t make sense to her, though. 

She sits down next to her, but doesn’t move to pick up any of the pieces. This doesn’t appeal to her, and she doesn’t see why is appeals to the other woman. She voices the second part aloud. 

“I find it peaceful. That can’t be said for much else around here.” 

It gets quiet after that. Nebula isn’t sure how to respond and Mantis is now fully focused on the task at hand. But if the previous task is anything to go by, she wont be held by this for long. 

She picks up edge pieces and begins slowly slotting them into place. Nebula focuses on the motions. She’s not sure why she doesn’t just get up and leave. Mantis doesn’t need her for this like she needed her for the short lived blaster training. She could just find something to do across the room. Read, maybe, but she doesn’t even bother trying. 

“Do you think I am too soft?” She doesn’t stop her movements in anticipation of an answer, almost as if the answer means nothing to her. 

“I think you are soft.” 

“Too soft?”

“No.”

She sees a smile at that out of her periphery. “I thought you of all people would think so. You always have to protect me from things, so do the others.” 

“Thanos had almost all of the infinity stones when you managed to hold him at a bay. I don’t protect you because you need it; I do it because… I don’t know.” 

Mantis puts another piece in and admires her work, “is it silly to say I wish to protect you too?”

Nebula hates this. She hates that Mantis will say things that make her unsure of what to say and how to act, and how its all done so calmly. As if she has no idea of the impact it has. She hates the impact it has… doesn’t she? 

“No, I— its not… silly.”

Mantis stands up suddenly, “I want to read but if I do that, I think you would be left out.”

“Are you okay?” It’s finally her turn to ask someone that question. It feels so strange in her mouth. 

“Yes, why?” Her eyebrows are knitted together in confusion. 

“You just… you seem restless.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry.” It’s such a genuine apology, and for what? 

“No, no, don’t apologize. It’s not bothering me, its just that you don’t usually act like this.” It’s true, she doesn’t. Mantis could spend hours on one thing without a single hitch in her enthusiasm for it and her full focus on it. When Drax had taught her how to cook, she spent almost six hours reading recipes and taking notes she might find useful. She even made note of flavors she thought might taste good together so she could experiment later. 

Nebula thought for a moment before adding, “I’m not making you nervous, am I?” She had worried from the start about that. Mantis never seemed nervous around her before though. 

“No!” She seemed affronted to even be asked a question like that. “Peter says we would be a cute couple.”

“What?” She asks, rather stupidly. There was no other way to say what she’d just said. 

“That is why I’m restless. Thinking about it makes me this way.”

“Why?” She doesn’t trust herself to form more than one word at a time into something coherent. 

“Because I want it to be true. No, that’s the wrong word. Possible. I want it to be possible.” Sentences like this prove that Mantis rarely filters through her thoughts before they spill out of her mouth. Something Nebula could never do. 

She tries so hard to think of something to say and all she comes up with is, “do you know why I protect you?’

“You said you did not know.”

“I do know. I do it because… its because I want to. I see you and I think that maybe if I protect you then you’ll trust me. Not many people trust me and that never bothered me until you and I became… close.”

Mantis looks kind of like she’s going to cry. Nebula has an apology right behind her lips before Mantis smiles. “Do you mean it?”

“Of course I do. I rarely say things I don’t mean.”

Mantis doesn’t even hesitate to say what she says next and Nebula wonders if she’ll ever be like that with the people who deserve certainty the most. “I want to touch you. Can I hold your hand?” 

Nebula nods and she thinks it’s probably the most enthusiastic nod she’s ever given someone. Mantis sits back down on the couch and wastes no time threading their fingers together. Whatever Mantis feels makes her smile again. Nebula relaxes at that knowledge. She was always so afraid that if Mantis were to ever touch her by either accident or necessity one, she would be scared of or upset with what she found. 

“Can we do things like this often?” 

Nebula looks at her when she speaks, something she feels like she hasn’t done all morning. “As often as you want.” 

“You may regret saying that,” she jokes, and it pulls a short laugh out of both of them. 

Mantis puts her head on Nebula’s shoulder and she thinks that maybe protecting each other is what they’re meant to do.

**Author's Note:**

> comments are appreciated, pls yell about them with me thank u


End file.
